Guess AI model featured in Vogue magazine. Credit: Instagram @seraphinnevallora
In a first for the iconic fashion magazine, Vogue featured an AI-generated model in its August 2025 print edition – sparking fierce backlash from readers, campaigners, and models alike.
The controversial double-page Guess advert, created by AI agency Seraphinne Vallora, showed hyper-realistic women modelling the brand’s latest summer collection. Only a small print label revealed she was not real.
“This is the direction AI should not be going in… wow,” wrote one shocked reader on X.
AI in fashion
Seraphinne Vallora, founded by Valentina Gonzalez and Andreea Petrescu, says the campaign was commissioned by Guess co-founder Paul Marciano via Instagram.
“We created 10 draft models… he selected one brunette woman and one blonde that we went ahead and developed further,” Gonzalez told the BBC.
She added that creating AI models is a complex process, with prices reaching “low six figures” per campaign.
But there is a cost-saving appeal. The company’s website states it “eliminates the need for expensive set-ups, MUA artists, venue rentals, photographers, travel expenses, hiring models.”
Plus-size model and activist Felicity Hayward called the move “lazy and cheap,” suggesting brands are chasing headlines rather than supporting real talent.
“It’s very disheartening and quite scary,” she told the BBC. “This will disproportionately affect plus-size models.”
Hayward isn’t alone in her criticism. Critics argue that AI models, often digitally perfected and lacking real-world diversity, could undo progress made in fashion inclusivity.
A huge Dove campaign in 2024 highlighted AI’s built-in bias. Asked to create “the most beautiful woman,” the AI generated thin, young, white, blonde figures – very similar to the AI Guess model.
Even Seraphinne Vallora admits its Instagram feed lacks diversity. “We’ve posted AI images of women with different skin tones, but people do not respond to them,” Gonzalez said. “At the end of the day, we are a business.”
The agency also says it hasn’t developed plus-size models, claiming “the technology is not advanced enough for that.”
Mental health and misleading beauty
Former model and tech entrepreneur Sinead Bovell warned that not clearly labelling AI content is “exceptionally problematic.”
“There are young girls getting plastic surgery to look like a face in a filter – and now we see people who are entirely artificial,” she told the BBC.
“The magazine is seen as the supreme court of the fashion industry,” Bovell said. “So allowing the AI advert to run means they are in some way ruling it as acceptable.”
While AI models might be cheaper and faster to create, they raise pressing questions: What happens to real people behind the scenes – models, stylists, and makeup artists?
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